← B. Alan Wallace

Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 7)

B. Alan Wallace · 2013 · 1 h 22 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 0:26

    The classic Buddhist understanding of mindfulness and the modern popularized version. The modern popularized version, especially by Jon Kabat-Zinn, but also many Vipassanā teachers, both Asian as well as Western, many now have simply equated mindfulness with bare attention, or moment-to-moment mindfulness of whatever arises, attending to it in a non-judgmental way. It's a useful definition, but it's not a Buddhist definition, and not in any school, not Theravāda or any other school.

  • 2:00

    I just was in Mongolia this past summer. And it turns out in all of these Buddhist languages, where Buddhism has really flourished in the culture, all of the terms that are the direct translation of Sati, all, without exception, have the primary connotation of recollection. So not bear attention at all, recollection, bearing in mind, not forgetting. That's what the term means in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and all cultures throughout Asia where it's flourished. And that often gets left out or just washed out.

  • 3:46

    Mindfulness is not only crucial for Vipassanā, which it of course is, it's also crucial for Vipassanā, excuse me, for shamatha, or samatha it's called in Pāli, but also for ethics. If you're not mindful, how will you know when you're behaving in an ethical way or an unethical, wholesome or unwholesome? And so when we consider that mindfulness or sati really primarily means bearing in mind, then we see that, you know, almost like opening a fan, we see, oh, but this has multiple connotations, multiple applications, and that is bearing in mind, as in not forgetting, means remembering. And so, for example, having...

  • 18:20

    And that is mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind and phenomena, those four. And the Buddha began his classic discourse, ever so often cited, really a centerpiece of all of Theravāda Buddhism. And very prominent in the whole Pāli canon, that is the recording of the teaching of the Buddha in the Pāli language, which is central for all of Theravāda Buddhism. The Buddha begins his discourse on these core practices for Vipassanā with a statement, this is the direct path, monks.

  • 53:31

    only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. In the sensed, only the sensed. In the cognized, only the cognized. And you see that there is no thing here. Again, no reified subject. You will therefore see indeed there is no thing there, reified object, absolutely other. As you see that there is no thing there, you will see that you are therefore located neither in the world of this, the subjective side,

0:03 So without going and giving a kind of a line-by-line commentary to the quotes that I've cited here pertaining to mindfulness and to introspection, I'd like to just run over it again briefly now that we've already kind of looked at it from inside the meditative practice, you know, really practicing right on the spot. Report an error

0:23 But to draw something with distinction between... The classic Buddhist understanding of mindfulness and the modern popularized version. The modern popularized version, especially by Jon Kabat-Zinn, but also many Vipassanā teachers, both Asian as well as Western, many now have simply equated mindfulness with bare attention, or moment-to-moment mindfulness of whatever arises, attending to it in a non-judgmental way. Report an error

0:50 It's a useful definition, but it's not a Buddhist definition, and not in any school, not Theravāda or any other school. So it's a simplified version. I always have to say, I don't quite want to use the word dumbed down, but it does fit actually. Because it's simplified and a lot of the nuance, the richness and frankly the intelligence of mindfulness as it's classically understood based on the Buddha's own teachings and then the greatest exponents of Theravāda Buddhism, Indian, Tibetan Buddhism is missing, is lost in that simplification down to simply bare attention. Report an error

1:21 So it's very useful, there's no question about that and that's scientifically demonstrated. But if one liked to see the richness of it, then one should go back to the classical sources, and that's what I've done here. So I've checked this out with various people I've met over the years. The Pāli term that we translate as mindfulness, it's become fairly generic, pretty good translation, is Sati. Then I've checked, I know some Sanskrit, the Sanskrit is Smriti, Tibetan I'm pretty fluent in, it's Tempa. Report an error

1:47 These are all one-to-one correlations, direct translation, Pāli, Sanskrit, Tibetan. And then over to Japanese, it's Nen, in Chinese it's Nyen, and Mongolian I've forgotten, it's something like Samasara, something like that. I just was in Mongolia this past summer. And it turns out in all of these Buddhist languages, where Buddhism has really flourished in the culture, all of the terms that are the direct translation of Sati, all, without exception, have the primary connotation of recollection. Report an error

2:15 So not bear attention at all, recollection, bearing in mind, not forgetting. That's what the term means in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and all cultures throughout Asia where it's flourished. And that often gets left out or just washed out. And that's why I think this is not an evolution of Buddhism. It's a discontinuity away from Buddhism when you're no longer in dialogue with the best sources, the most authoritative sources. Report an error

2:41 And the lineage that's kept these teachings alive over the last 25 hundred years, you've gone off on your own tangent, and then it's no longer Buddhism, it's your own invention. And I think that's, well, that's fine for them, but it's not so good for Buddhism, that it just kind of unravels because of people's bright ideas that are unrelated to the tradition. Report an error

2:56 So retention is something that has been very simple, and that it's a deliberate bearing in mind, bearing in mind, not forgetting, not being distracted. So that's it. True for all schools of Buddhism, including Theravāda, including Vipassanā. So one error then is to reduce that to simply bear attention, which it never has been true of the Buddhist tradition. Report an error

3:19 Another one that I think is much more unfortunate is to simply equate that type of mindfulness with Vipassanā. And that's just flat out false. I mean, it's terribly misleading. Report an error

3:29 That would imply then that mindfulness occurs only in Vipassanā, but it's not a crucial factor in Samatha. But Samatha is a whole distinct, different... mode of meditation than Vipassanā but as we can see in shamatha there is no such thing as shamatha without mindfulness mindfulness is the engine that drives it and so to equate Mindfulness is not only crucial for Vipassanā, which it of course is, it's also crucial for Vipassanā, excuse me, for shamatha, or samatha it's called in Pāli, but also for ethics. Report an error

4:04 If you're not mindful, how will you know when you're behaving in an ethical way or an unethical, wholesome or unwholesome? And so when we consider that mindfulness or sati really primarily means bearing in mind, then we see that, you know, almost like opening a fan, we see, oh, but this has multiple connotations, multiple applications, and that is bearing in mind, as in not forgetting, means remembering. Report an error

4:26 And so, for example, having... I've attended a day or two of this retreat. I've given a number of instructions on mindfulness of breathing. But then when I'm not talking and you're sitting quietly, a simple question can be posed. Did you remember the instructions or not? Do you remember about posture? Do you remember about the breathing? Do you remember about setting the mind at ease? Do you remember... Report an error

4:50 What mindfulness is, introspection, what excitation and laxity are. Do you remember the antidotes? Do you remember what to do at the end of the out-breath? That's a lot to remember. And if you don't remember it, then you're just sitting there wondering what to do. So that's the type of mindfulness. It's retrospective mindfulness, which means recalling the instructions. Report an error

5:07 And if you can't, then you're not doing them, which means you're kind of sitting there. And so whether you're practicing the modern Vipassanā, you're practicing Zen or anything else, any type of meditation. If you don't recall the instructions, then you're stuck. And mindfulness means you are remembering the instructions. Now when we refer to mindfulness of breathing, then it's not recalling breaths that I have known. Report an error

5:32 You're not remembering breaths from the past. Clearly the practice is Ānāpānasati samādhi. It's samādhi, now this is the Buddhist term for it, for the practice we've been doing, Ānāpānasati samādhi. That's a Pāli. And samādhi is very focused attention. It's focused attention by way of mindfulness, sati, of the in and out breathing, anapanah, samādhi. So you're learning how to focus your attention, achieve very fine attentional balance by way of mindfulness of the breathing, in and out breathing. Report an error

6:04 And here mindfulness means a bearing in mind, a not forgetting, a not being distracted from the flow of the in-breath, the out-breath from moment to moment, in the present moment. So that's a present-centered mindfulness, a present-centered bearing in mind. Not forgetting, not being distracted away from. So we see there's retrospective. And then there's also present-centered mindfulness. Still has the meaning of recollection. Report an error

6:29 But then there's also prospective mindfulness. And we all know that we've all used this ability many, many times. It's just part of our daily living. Where we remember to do something in the future. If your spouse says, please break up some groceries on the way home. And then after a day of work. You do recall and you pick up the groceries, then you've exercised prospective memory. You remember to do something in the future. So likewise, here in this practice, when I say there are two primary attentional imbalances, laxity and excitation, and when, when the occasion, maybe it's going to be five seconds from now, maybe five minutes from now, as you're venturing into the practice, when excitation arises, this is what you should do. Recognize it with your faculty of introspection. Report an error

7:15 And then relax, release and return. Those are instructions. But when you're just sitting there, when your mind is focused, then you don't need to relax, release, return because you're already there. But some seconds from now, when your mind is wandering again, then you need to remember at that time, what were those instructions again? Relax, release and return. Report an error

7:38 Okay, and then you're doing it. So it's just like pick up the groceries on the way home. But you probably know when you're going to come home, when you've closed the office door and you're heading home. But you don't know when the next bout of excitation, agitation, wandering is going to occur. It could be three seconds from now, 30 seconds from now. But when it does happen, remember to do this. Recognize it and apply these remedies. It's prospective memory. Report an error

8:03 And of course, likewise for laxity. First of all, arouse your attention by refreshing your interest, refreshing your attentiveness. So re-engage. Restore your attention and then retain it. Keep going. So those are the instructions for recognizing and then antidoting or remedying laxity and dullness. So mindfulness is very rich. Report an error

8:25 And then we see, for example, for monks and nuns or anybody else who has precepts, Bodhisattva precepts, Vajrayana, Samayas and so forth, you have a certain number of precepts you have. And some of them you may be prone to break. Some of them are probably not much of a danger. Like, I doubt that you really have to think a whole lot about alcohol. You just don't do it, then you don't have to think about it anymore. Report an error

8:45 It's kind of just so deeply ingrained. Alcohol, no, I don't eat dog manure and I don't drink alcohol. I don't think about it, though. I don't think, oh, I won't eat that dog manure. You know, just don't do it. But other ones, because I was a monk for 14 years, and he had 253 precepts, that's 253 things to remember. Report an error

9:05 And some of them may be really easy, but other ones, like using water. If a monk turns on to water and kills insects, he's broken a vow. So that's easier to break. It's not malevolence, it's not greed, it's not detachment, it's just kind of mindlessness. That when you turn on the water, like you're going to run a bath, you check the bathtub first. Report an error

9:25 Because you really don't want to inflict any unnecessary injury. And checking the bathtub for insects, taking them out and then turning on the water, that's good. But you do have to remember, I'm about to take a bath, oh, there might be insects, maybe I should check. I have to tell an anecdote, I have a little grandson, and he's been raised as a Buddhist by his mother, because she's Buddhist, of course. Report an error

9:49 And he asked me to run him a bath when he was, I don't know, maybe three or four years old, several years ago. And so we went in there, but we're both looking in the bathtub whether there are any insects. We're both looking at a lot of interest. There's one. So we get the paper. Take it out to a safe place. Then we're looking. And as far as I can tell, it looks good. And so I'm about to turn on the water. He said, no, wait, wait, Grandpa, there's one more. And he's pointing. Report an error

10:13 I said, no, that's just a speck of dust, Troy. And he said, no, no, Grandpa, I think it's an insect. I don't think, well, let's nudge it. And it moved. Oh, okay, Troy, you're right. And then we cleaned that one out. Okay, now all systems clear. And then you can turn on the water. But that's prospective memory. Report an error

10:30 But you know that is a time when you might violate one of your precepts and there are many others where you need to remember the precept and then remember the occasion in which that might arise for you to break the precept and then not do it. So we see mindfulness, retrospective mindfulness, what are your vows again? Present-centered mindfulness, what situation am I encountering right now? Report an error

10:51 A monk must not touch a woman with desire, with lust. You don't even touch even the hand at all. So if there's a woman right next to you and you find you're attractive, I know this very clearly, you just don't touch at all. If it's your mama or elderly woman or a little girl, it's just sweetness, like it's only taking a little girl on his lap, it doesn't issue. Report an error

11:14 The issue of lust isn't there, so no problem. But if you feel, oh, I'm sexually attracted to this woman, then you just make sure you don't even cross the line even of touching. But you don't have to worry when it's a man or whatever. But if it's a woman you're attracted to, then you remember, I have a precept, don't touch with lust. And then you reckon, ah, I'm attracted to that woman, good, I'll just mind my own business. Report an error

11:37 When I was in Sri Lanka, living as a monk in a Buddhist country, no woman will ever sit on the bench, on a bus seat with a monk. Never. They don't even think about it. Because they don't want the monk to break the vows. Because they want to protect the monks, and the monks want to protect themselves. So we see for morality, then for ethics. Report an error

11:56 You need to remember, whether you have precepts or not, remember some things are unwholesome, some things like slander, for example. Even when slander is true, you're saying something about another person that's negative, and you're saying it so other people will look down upon, let's say, him. You want to create some device, you want to isolate this person, you really think badly of this person, you don't want anybody to like him. Oh, you like him? Oh, I have to tell you about him. After you've listened to me, you won't like him anymore. Report an error

12:20 You wouldn't believe this, but I've got to tell you. And even if every word coming out of your mouth is true, it's still slander, which means you've just violated, you've engaged in non-virtuous action. You say, no, no, but it's true, I know. What was your motivation? And so it gets a bit dicey. So when we see if we really hold somebody in contempt, we have to be very careful whenever we speak about that person. Report an error

12:43 For those we don't hold in contempt, no problem. Those we admire, no problem. But that person, oh, if I ever refer to him, I have to watch my mouth. It's not enough to say the truth. I have to watch my motivation. So, we can see that mindfulness is imperative. You will not live an ethical life, unless you're already perfect. You will not live an ethical life if you're not exercising retrospective mindfulness, present-centered mindfulness and prospective mindfulness. Report an error

13:07 Mindfulness is crucial for ethics. Mindfulness is essential for shamatha and the whole of samādhi training. And of course we are closely applying mindfulness that's been cultivated in the practice of samādhi. That skill that we've honed through the practice of shamatha, more generically through the cultivation of samādhi, that faculty that is now refined, honed, sharpened, we're applying it in the careful examination of phenomena in the practice of ipashana, the four applications of mindfulness. Report an error

13:39 So mindfulness is very rich, very nuanced, and one facet of it is bear attention, which is very useful. But we can see now it's actually a small wedge of the pie. And the recipe is quite delicious and very important for all aspects. And that's why it's so terribly misleading to equate mindfulness with Vipassanā, which is simply completely wrong. Report an error

13:58 So that's mindfulness. And the second one, Sambhajanya in Pāli, translated in various ways. Sometimes there's full awareness, which I find very vague. Sometimes there's vigilance, which is vague. Alertness, which is vague. Maybe there's some other ones as well. Report an error

14:15 But they're all missing a very crucial point about this particular mental faculty, which I'm translating as introspection, and that is the sampajanya, or samprajanya in Sanskrit. It's always reflexive, always reflexive. So, what is your name? Angela. So I may apply mindfulness, I am applying mindfulness right now to Angela's face, to facial expression, slight movements of the head, her voice, her saying, I am Angela, Angela. Report an error

14:42 And so I can practice mindfulness on Angela. I can practice mindfulness, direct mindfulness to any object. Human being, abstract like justice, tangible, physical, all kinds of things. But so, very broad sweep, right? Direct your attention there, there's where you're sustaining mindfulness. But introspection is always reflexive. Report an error

15:00 So I cannot apply my faculty of introspection to Angela's body or to her speech or attitude, behavior and so on. It's just by definition you can't do that. I, as this individual, It can apply introspection reflexively to my own body, my body, my physical behavior, the movement of hands, my voice, my speech. Report an error

15:23 I can apply introspection. I'm expecting intro. I can listen to your speech with mindfulness, but I can monitor my own speech introspectively. And then, of course, my emotions, my thoughts, the degree of laxity and excitation and so forth, the internal monitoring the mind. That too is introspection. And so introspection is always reflexive, it's also crucial for ethics, it's crucial for samādhi, and it's crucial for wisdom. Report an error

15:50 These two, the dynamic pair of mindfulness and introspection run through all of Buddhist teachings on meditation. Whether it's the most esoteric ones in Vajrayana or Dzogchen, or the very simple ones like mindfulness of breathing. So to have a clear conceptual understanding of these two, to know how to formulate it in your mind, with your intellect, And then to see what it's like, it's like understanding a recipe and then baking a cake and then seeing what the cake tastes like. What does mindfulness taste like when you've understood it, how it's defining characteristics and see, ah yes, this is mindfulness. Report an error

16:25 I've just lost mindfulness. Here I'm picking that up with introspection. I'm applying introspection. Then it becomes second nature. And I would say that the definitions I've just given are correct for the Buddhist tradition. Now other traditions, modern psychology, they can define mindfulness any way they like, and pretty much they've adopted their attention, which is fine. If you want to call that the modern psychological definition of mindfulness, which is very, very generic now, that's fine. Report an error

16:50 We're not saying they're wrong, which is saying that's your definition, but the Buddhist definition is actually much, much richer, and it always has been. And I'm not ready to impoverish the Buddhist tradition just because the other one has become much more popular. And so mindfulness, introspection, These are the pair that are central to the practice of shamatha and as we will see central to Vipassanā as well. And so, then you can read the quotations here. Report an error

17:22 Each one of them is from a really classic source. This is right there on page 3, right inside from Nagasena. He was an arhat from the 2nd century before the common era, Buddhagosa. The greatest commentator in the Theravāda tradition, Shantideva, one of the greatest commentators in all of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. A Saṅgha, the same. And so those are our five-star sources. Report an error

17:41 They're all very authoritative. And we can see from the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna tradition, they're completely compatible definitions. And I think what the explanation I've just given accords with them. Report an error

17:54 And then we move on. But these are absolutely core. Mindfulness, introspection, having a clear conceptual understanding. And then seeing what they taste like. What are they when you're actually practicing on the cushion and in between sessions. So there we are. And then we turn to the classic practice or matrix of practices of the Satipitthana or the close applications of mindfulness. Report an error

18:20 And that is mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind and phenomena, those four. And the Buddha began his classic discourse, ever so often cited, really a centerpiece of all of Theravāda Buddhism. And very prominent in the whole Pāli canon, that is the recording of the teaching of the Buddha in the Pāli language, which is central for all of Theravāda Buddhism. Report an error

18:43 The Buddha begins his discourse on these core practices for Vipassanā with a statement, this is the direct path, monks. I'm going to break this one down. This is worth lingering on and understanding clearly. This is the direct path. So there are many other paths that kind of weave around, they're indirect, they get caught up in a lot of interesting things on the side. But these four applications of mindfulness, they're just without frills, without elaboration, very direct. Report an error

19:12 These are all about liberating the mind completely and irreversibly from all mental afflictions. And this is then a type of spiritual evolution, a maturation. It's not just doing some practices for a long time and then dying, but the whole idea of this. It's a path, a marga, it's called in Sanskrit. And that is, there's really a growth, a transformation, an evolution, a maturation, so that over the course of time, you're not just making the same mistakes or falling into the same ruts as you did previously, because you've evolved beyond that. Report an error

19:46 So this is the direct path. That's commentary to four words. And now we have monks. Well, as a matter of fact, for the 45 years or so that the Buddha was teaching after his enlightenment, these teachings really he presented as being kind of professional grade. There were teachings he gave to kings and princes and courtesans and farmers and servants and all kinds of people. There was no one he would not teach. He completely overlooked or dismissed the caste system, the hierarchy of Indian society, dismissed that as being of no significance, which then... Report an error

20:22 Rattle a lot of people's cages. But among this wide array of society, there were those who renounced the lay life, the life of a householder, and took the robes and became renunciates and devoted their whole lives to following his teachings. So they were called monks or nuns. And so they really, they were the professionals. Report an error

20:47 They were the ones that had nothing else to do besides receive professional training and devote themselves professionally full time to meditation, to practice, to theory, to teaching, to serving the community, but purely in terms of Dharma. So when I was a monk, my teacher Geshadapton told me, because I trained with him for about 10 years, he said, now that you're a monk you have only three things to do. Listen to teachings, reflect on the teachings and practice the teachings. Report an error

21:12 That now defines your life. That's good. That's why I wanted to become a monk. Report an error

21:18 This is professional great teaching. He gave many, many teachings to lay people, but not very often did he give these teachings to people who are not fully devoted to practice, but doing various things, making a living, raising their children, going on vacation, etc., etc., etc. On occasion he would teach this to lay people, but primarily this was really professional teaching for professionals. And so he said this is the direct path for the purification of beings. Report an error

21:48 Purifying what? Purifying the mind of all mental afflictions, purifying one's whole being from all types of harmful behavior that are aroused by the afflictions of the mind. So this is for the direct path to the purification of beings. For the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation. For overcoming pain and grief. In other words, as he said, my teachings are all about understanding the nature of suffering and overcoming suffering. And so here are things that we don't want. Report an error

22:19 We don't want sorrow, lamentation. We don't want pain or grief that is either physical or mental suffering. So if you don't want it, then you better find out what really causes it and not just identify a whole bunch of things that may or may not catalyze. So this is really a science of the origins of suffering. And then having identified the true causes of suffering, then this is a way for overcoming them by cutting them from the root. Report an error

22:45 This is the direct path for reaching the authentic path. Authentic path, of course, is one that is in accordance with reality. That is true. It actually works for the complete purification of the mind. This is such a novel notion. I mean, it's almost really, frankly, it's almost unheard of in all of Western civilization. I don't think anywhere in Judaism. Report an error

23:10 It's a very noble tradition, tremendously rich and of tremendous benefit over millennia for many, many people. But the ideal in this lifetime of completely purifying the mind of all afflictions, I don't think it ever comes up. Christianity, not in this lifetime. Not so over at least the last 1500 years. St. Augustine said the contemplative life is to be begun in this lifetime, but it cannot reach its culmination, its fruition in this lifetime. Report an error

23:37 That can only happen in the afterlife. That's what he said. And that's 1500 years ago. And by and large, with very few exceptions. I mean, I don't know of any. That's why I say maybe there could be a few here and there. The entire contemplative tradition, the whole church, the Eastern Orthodox, the Russian, the Roman Catholic, many schools of Protestant tradition, none of them even hold this as an ideal, an attainable ideal, to purify your whole being of sin, purifying your mind entirely and irreversibly of vice. Report an error

24:03 I have a whole lot of lists of vices, but it's not really presented as an attainable ideal. And this is true for Jidaism and Christianity. I think it's not there in Islam either. Then all the less so in modern, let's say, clinical psychology, going back to Freud and so forth. Freud was very clear about that. To get over psychoses, an attainable ideal, to completely eradicate from your mind all traces of neuroses. Report an error

24:29 He says, not even in your dreams, you know, get used to it. Get used to being merely mildly unhappy. And having a manageable set of neuroses, but don't think that they can be eradicated, because they can't be. And so what he did was what so many people have done in science, in religion and so forth. If they can't do it, they make it a general rule. If I can't, nobody can. That's a bit off the mark. Report an error

24:56 I can't, you know, I tried. I can't run 100 meters in 10 seconds. Can't do it. That bolt, I don't know, what do you think? Can you really do it or not? Maybe it's just a bunch of PR. Because I can't do it. You can't do it either, can you? 10 seconds, 100 meters? I doubt it. In fact, I bet nobody here can do it. Probably nobody can do it, right? Because we can't do it. Report an error

25:17 Okay, it's impossible. I've checked. I check with all my friends. Nobody can run 100 meters in 10 seconds. Nobody can do it. Except if it's just, you know, get real. Open your eyes up. We haven't had the training. We don't have the skill. We don't have the right kind of body. Very few people are a bolt that can bolt through 100 meters in 10 seconds. Report an error

25:36 And so... As with the body, I mean the amazing things that Olympic athletes can do and they keep on outdoing themselves. It's amazing how they keep on breaking records. It's amazing. Report an error

25:47 How about psychologically? Why have we already set the bar so low and then said this is an unbreachable ceiling. Can't go beyond this. So we've set our standards very low. Sanity is basically not calling notice to yourself. But if you're living, for example, if you're living in an intensely racist society, Like, well, especially parts of the United States, for example, and especially up to the 60s. There's still a lot of racism there. But back in the 1950s and before, it was unbridled. Report an error

26:20 There was no restraints on it, right? The apartheid in South Africa. Just no restraints. And so everybody, if you're a white living in South Africa, if you're a white living in Mississippi in 1940s, racism, what do you mean? They're inferior to us. I'm not a racist, they're just inferior. Why are you raising your eyebrows? What's wrong? Report an error

26:40 And so if everybody does it, then it's considered sane. What you just said was incredibly stupid and mean and vicious. Yeah, but everybody believes that. Even the blacks have gotten the message. They know their place. And so we have to be very careful, I think, about determining what is and is not sane just relative to our environment. A lot of people can believe stuff that is very wrong. Report an error

27:03 And so this is a path for overcoming. So it's quite a lofty ideal. It's one that had been entertained in India. And it didn't just shock people. What do you mean? How could we ever overcome grief and lamentation and so forth? But he's saying this is the direct path for achieving that ideal. This is the direct path for realizing nirvāṇa, the unconditioned, which is beyond time and space, transcendent, by nature blissful, beyond time. Report an error

27:33 So what is this direct path? It is namely the four applications of mindfulness. So he's really identifying this as... This is a core, central to all of his teachings on wisdom, the cultivation of wisdom through the practice of insight meditation. What's remarkable about this, and I think especially relative to our modern setting here in the 21st century, is that as we understand the context and the actual practices of these four applications of mindfulness, it's very, very clear, emphatically clear, that this is really about the cultivation of virtue. Report an error

28:09 Cultivation of wisdom, cultivation of patience, of kindness, of compassion, of many, many virtues. This is a path of virtue. If it's not, then it's not a Buddhist path at all. And so simply becoming better people, less prone to unwholesome or unethical behavior, more naturally prone, spontaneously prone to engaging in acts of virtue. Report an error

28:30 So it is absolutely a path of virtue. Which again, virtue is virtue. These are not just some set of especially Buddhist virtues. Report an error

28:38 Look around at what is a classic set of Christian virtues with a great deal of overlap. A classic set of Jewish virtues and Taoist and Hindu and Muslim virtues. There's a great deal of overlap. And then people who don't have any religion. Still a lot of overlap. Yes, we could come up with quite a long list of things that people with very diverse worldviews. Report an error

29:01 Yes, we regard these as virtues. These are things to aspire for, to cultivate. We cherish them. When we see other people embody them, we admire them for it. So, nothing uniquely Buddhist about this. There are, of course, unique aspects of virtue theory, but a lot of it is common ground. Report an error

29:22 And so it is, emphatically, these four applications of mindfulness, a path of cultivating virtue. It's at the same breath, There's just no question that this whole path is about cultivating genuine happiness. Genuine happiness arising by way of ethics, by way of samādhi, by way of insight and wisdom. Report an error

29:45 It's absolutely integrated. You can't have this practice without that. It really is all about finding greater happiness, a sense of fulfillment and meaning. But it's also emphatically, unequivocally and most explicitly a path in the pursuit of knowledge. Understanding, knowing what is true. Knowing what is true. Not simply corroborating the Buddhist beliefs or getting well indoctrinated in certain doctrine or metaphysical system, but simply knowing what is true. Report an error

30:15 Because the Buddhist conviction is that we're liberated not by simply believing what the Buddha said, but by knowing reality as it is, regardless of what the Buddha said. And the Buddhist teachings are there to enable us to come to know What is the real nature of suffering? What are its actual causes, its primary causes? What is the nature of the liberation from those? And what is the authentic path to such liberation? Report an error

30:37 And that entails knowing the nature of the mind, nature of consciousness, multiple dimensions of consciousness, and so on. And so this is really an avenue for gaining understanding, knowledge, insight, direct discovery of crucial facets of the nature of reality. And experienced reality, not some hypothetical reality that only God can see and we can imagine or infer, but know the reality we are experiencing. Now it just occurs to me, pops up in my mind right now, that there is really some common ground also with Galileo, but from an unexpected way. Report an error

31:15 And that is, Galileo is a very devout Roman Catholic. As I said earlier this morning, he was moved by something very, it's called apotheosis. Apotheosis, religious studies term, is the aspiration for the mind of man or mind of a human being to ascend to the mind of God, kind of a transcendence, where you're seeing something from a perspective beyond your ordinary mundane, egocentric, anthropocentric perspective. Report an error

31:44 So apotheosis, well there's no question that Galileo was captivated by the theme of apotheosis. To want to know the nature of reality from a God's eye perspective. What really is happening? Is the sun going around the earth, which is believed for about 1800 years at least? Or is earth going around the sun? Which Copernicus formulated mathematically. He was inspired by the ancient Greeks. Galileo adopted, interestingly enough, Galileo emphatically adopted Copernicus' theory before he had any compelling evidence. Report an error

32:13 Galileo was the first one to come up with compelling evidence. But the Ptolemaic theory, with all the epicycles and eccentrics and all of that, the Earth being in the center, it really accounted for the phenomena about as well as Copernicus did. But Galileo was just absolutely gung-ho on Copernicus, and he totally believed it, advocated it, before he had any evidence to show that it was actually superior. He believed it first, and then he got out his telescope, discovered the phases of Venus, and that was the first empirical evidence that completely repudiated the Ptolemaic system. Report an error

32:45 So the evidence came after his belief. And that's not the first time or the last time that's happened in the history of science. He believed correctly. And then he corroborated what he already believed. But he was already very intent that that had to be the way it was. But getting to the point here, and that is this yearning I think we all resonate with, I'm imagining, that yearning to transcend a limited perspective, an egocentric perspective. Report an error

33:09 In my case, I don't want to be locked into an American perspective. I love America. It's a good country in many respects. But I don't want to be seeing reality only from that perspective or from an Anglo-American perspective. I don't want to be locked into that. I don't really want to be locked into an anthropocentric perspective. I'd like to be able to see reality from a larger vision, more transcendent, more embracing. Report an error

33:32 It's not novel. It's actually pretty common among thoughtful people. Galileo was profoundly moved by that. And for him, the only perspective really worth emulating or approximating is God's perspective. But this movement, this aspiration, this incentive for transcendence, it's there in Buddhism too, of course. Report an error

33:53 It's there in all of the spiritual traditions. It's there in science. It's there in philosophy. It's there in art. It's there in music. Transcendent experiences, listening to music, playing music, where you care beyond yourself, aesthetically. This is all very real. Report an error

34:09 How does it manifest in the Buddhist tradition when there's no notion of leaping out of your skin and looking at reality from some radically outside perspective, divine perspective, and looking back? There's no such notion. And how do you achieve it? Not by technology and not by mathematics. Mathematics in Buddhism is very primitive. Report an error

34:28 It's basically arithmetic. There's hardly anything more. It's not a strength of Buddhism. And technology, forget about it. In terms of external technology, there's nothing. Prayer wheels. So where's the technology? Well, we kind of know. The technology is exactly where we don't have any in the West at all. If you look for uniquely Western training and attention, it'll probably be about 10 years old and heavily inspired by Buddhism and Hinduism. Report an error

34:53 Because we come on up with pretty much nothing after 2,000 years of civilization or more. Western civilization, apart from Christianity, which their attention training kind of faded out a lot with the rise of modern science, lo and behold. But the notion of transcendence here is not by developing more and more sophisticated technology and more and more magnificent mathematics, the great strength of the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman, because if the Judeo-Christian was dad, the Greco-Roman was mom. Report an error

35:23 Enormous influence from Plato and Aristotle, both, and of course the whole succession after them. They had an enormous impact. On the kind of questions posed and so forth with the rise of modern science. These were very educated people in many cases that instigated the first scientific revolution. So if not that way, in what way? And the technology is exactly samādhi. And so the transcendence here is very interesting and it's not at all evident, it's not obvious. Report an error

35:52 But when you are cultivating, not for six days, but you go out for a one-year retreat or five-year retreat, you practice and you achieve shamatha. When you do so, then your mind, an Australian mind, Asian mind, American mind, what have you, that mind that is heavily conditioned by our own personal history, by our gender, by our ethnicity, by language, that mind that we call the psyche, the psyche, that which psychologists study with its conscious and unconscious levels, we can call that whole bundle the psyche, what Buddhists call the coarse mind, the coarse mind dissolves. Report an error

36:32 It vanishes. It melts away. Not into nothing, not into oblivion, but it dissolves into, it melts into, so to speak, an underlying subtle continuum of consciousness, which is variously called the subtle continuum of mental consciousness. In the Pāli tradition, it's called the Bhavaṅga. In the Dzogchen tradition, it's called the substrate consciousness. Bhavaṅga means the ground of becoming. And the substrate consciousness, or the Alaya Vishnana, is simply, in the Dzogchen context, it's the same. Report an error

37:01 It's not refuted, there's nothing in Buddhist philosophy, prasangak or otherwise, that refutes the substrate consciousness. Not as it's presented in Dzogchen, completely compatible. But the point here, it's a subtle continuum of consciousness that is not human, it's not animal, it doesn't have a species specification, has no gender, has no personal history. Report an error

37:23 It's just a clear flow of cognizance. Report an error

37:30 And when your awareness is dissolved there and you are viewing reality from that perspective, your perspective is no longer human. It's no longer human. And you can access another whole dimension of reality that is not human. It's called the form realm, which is another dimension of reality out of which, in Buddhist understanding, this universe we know emerges and eventually dissolves. Report an error

37:53 And so there's a way of transcendence. Look outwardly, you look like you're just sitting there. Maybe you're snoring. I mean, you're probably not snoring, but you look like, oh. He looks like he's dozed off. Report an error

38:05 Inwardly, you've transcended. Your perspective is no longer, for the time being, while in samādhi, your perspective is no longer human. You can go even beyond that into the formless realm. That's way beyond. Very abstract, very rarefied. It's not human perspective. And you're now exploring another dimension of reality, the formless dimension of reality. Report an error

38:26 Or you may, if you come back to Vipassanā, you may enter into a direct realization of emptiness. From that perspective, that's not a human perspective. It's beyond, it's transhuman. Or in the Dzogchen and Vajrayana, Mahamudra traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, you may dissolve even your subtle continuum of consciousness, subtle mind, into very subtle mind, variously called the innate mind of clear light, pristine awareness, primordial consciousness. Report an error

38:55 Dissolve there to the very ground, the ultimate ground awareness. Nothing human about it. It's utterly transcendent. And that's the culmination. You're now viewing reality from a perspective that is beyond space, beyond time, beyond concepts, truly transcended. And from that perspective you know reality as it is. But it's not somebody else's perspective, like somebody else, like God or Buddha or somebody else. Report an error

39:25 It's your own perspective, but now your own perspective from the deepest ground. So the theme of transcendence runs through all of these traditions. manifest differently. But what is very interesting is to see when one probes into the depths of Christian contemplative practice and Buddhist and Taoist and Vaita Vedanta Sufi and so forth, are you finding common ground? Report an error

39:48 Are you finding their more approaching point or are they diverging or are they irrelevant to each other? Those are pretty interesting questions. Report an error

39:57 So we have these three pursuits of virtue, genuine happiness and knowledge, knowing reality as it is. All of these manifest very distinctly in our own civilization, Western civilization, Eurocentric. They manifest to varying degrees in other civilizations too. Nobody has a monopoly. But I think we all know people, especially religious people, especially very devout Christians, who their life is really all about pleasing God, loving their neighbors as themselves, acting with kindness, with charity, with loving kindness and so forth, leading virtuous lives, pleasing in the eyes of God. Report an error

40:35 And this is very often, it's taught. It's taught all the time by the Pope himself, this wonderful new Pope that has emerged, Pope Francis. And many very devout and very ethical Protestants and so on, but really think this is what life is all about. It's leading a virtuous life. So we have that. There's no question about that. And then we have the pursuit of happiness. Well, everybody wants that. And so, everybody wants that. Report an error

41:02 And it's for sale. You can get it with money. You can get it with power, you can get it with influence. You want happiness? Good, get more influence and you can get people to behave the way you want them to. Get more power, get more wealth. So happiness, everybody wants that. Scientists, philosophers, everybody wants that. Animals want that. And then the pursuit of knowledge. Well, theologians are certainly looking for that, philosophers. Report an error

41:24 But the great success story, of course, is science. Over the last 400 years, there's tremendous growth of science, of knowledge by way of science. Report an error

41:34 My sense is, and I don't think I'm any more of an expert on contemporary society than anybody else here, I just live here, but as I reflect upon these three pursuits in our familiar world, it looks to me like these three pursuits are pretty much unrelated to each other. Not entirely, but pretty much. And that is, those really devoted to a life of virtue, they may find a great sense of genuine happiness coming from that. Report an error

41:58 It does happen, for sure. But it can also lead to total burnout. Not just religious people, but people, I know this from some people close to me in my life, people who, out of altruism, benevolence, wishing to do something virtuous, something good in the world, become school teachers and get burned out. Report an error

42:16 No happiness at all, just heavy, heavy, hired, exhausted, and just counting the days until retirement. I know people like that. Not a myth. People who enter the medical profession. A woman I knew, she was my first girlfriend, a long time ago, we're still friends. But she was a senior nurse. And then she quit when she was only about 50. In prime of life, very healthy, very smart, her husband's a doctor, very dedicated, no less altruistic. Report an error

42:43 But she couldn't stand it anymore. She said, I cannot be a nurse in this industry. They're preventing me from being a good nurse. I know what being a good nurse is like, and they won't let me do it. The administration, all the rules and so forth. I can't do it, I'm fed up. And she wrote an article for the major journal of nurses in the United States. Report an error

43:02 She said, this is why I'm quitting. I can't stand it anymore. She's not the only one. And doctors and administrators and so forth. So coming in with altruism and getting burned out for one reason or another is not at all uncommon. In the service professions, social workers and so forth, coming in with altruism and then burned out because there was just no happiness. Happiness just faded out with all this stress, the wear and tear. Report an error

43:27 So virtue often doesn't wind up really having much to do with happiness. It may, often doesn't. Pursuit of happiness? Normally, it has nothing to do with virtue. Normal. It has nothing to do with knowledge either. You know, just go for it. You don't have to be knowledgeable. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to inquire. Just kind of go for it. There's something you can get. Get it. You know? And so, unrelated. And then, quite unfortunately, the pursuit of knowledge, especially in science, has very little to do with ethics. Report an error

43:59 There are very ethical scientists, but that's not a job requirement. It's not a job requirement to get into MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Cambridge University, what have you. But when they're looking at your application, if you're applying to get into graduate school, you're applying for a job as a scientist in one of these very esteemed institutions, how virtuous you are, I don't think it's going to show up. Report an error

44:22 They'll probably never ask you, what kind of community work do you do? How patient, how loving are you? How would you grade yourself in terms of compassion? I don't think so. It's not part of the job description. And so it's often, pursuit of science is often simply irrelevant. It's just, I was curious. Report an error

44:41 Or I got paid. I got a big grant. What can I do? Thank you, by the way, the person who gave me the article on how science is going wrong. In many ways. In many ways. And especially since the Second World War, when it's become, science served the Second World War very well. I see a little bit of irony, but it's simply true. Report an error

45:01 Science really came into its own. It was well-funded. But especially after the Second World War, science has been now up to its neck in issues of money. Good science is expensive. The pot of money is finite. Who's going to get it? Fiercely competitive. And about money. The people with big grants, they get to do good science. Report an error

45:24 They have the opportunity. People with little grants, it's hard to do good science. So it's really about money. It's very much about influence. Prestige. Prestige. Big prestige factor. Enormous. And then power, influence. Who is it advising the presidents, the prime ministers and so forth? So the scientific institutions are up to the neck and the three jewels of wealth, prestige and power. And that combination doesn't really make for good science. Report an error

45:56 It tends to distract them from good science and cover up bad science if it still enables them to get the grants, the prestige and the power. So it's a very troubled institution. Still very noble, has a lot of self-correcting mechanisms within it to right itself, but it is very troubled right now. And again, as we've seen in the 20th century, this enormous growth of knowledge about so many things, including the mind. Report an error

46:23 A lot of knowledge we have about the mind scientifically we didn't have 100 years ago. But if we ask, it's an open question, I don't pretend I have any special insight here, but if we ask in the year 2013, Report an error

46:37 Are people mentally happy? Are we healthier? The answer is yes. Are we living longer? Yes. So sure, hedonically, physically, no question about it. Mentally, are we, as a society, generally speaking, happier now, more contented, more fulfilled, having more meaningful lives, having a greater sense of genuine happiness, not just hedonic pleasure, but genuine happiness now than we had 50 years ago or 100 years ago? Report an error

47:03 And are we more ethical because of science? And it gave us so much knowledge, shouldn't we be a lot more ethical? I think it would be a tough sell. I think it would be a very tough thing to argue. Oh yes, we're much more ethical thanks to science. It gave us so much knowledge. Much happier, eudaimonically, genuine happiness thanks to science. Report an error

47:20 I think that would be very tough. So there is a disintegration. It wasn't always so. If you go back to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, back to the 12th century, the high medieval period, where natural science was just something vaguely imagined. Report an error

47:38 Within this great fusion of Thomas Aquinas of the biblical tradition and then the wisdom of the great philosophers of Greece and his fusion of Aristotle and biblical theology. So Aquinas' masterpiece. And that was considered by many people to be quite whole and complete and flawless. He took the best of the Greeks and he took the biblical tradition, fused them into one integrated whole and he said, voila! Report an error

48:03 He was brilliant, amazing genius. And he was so brilliant that many people for about 200 years thought, well, that's pretty much it. Knowledge is now complete. We know everything we need to know. And moreover, in this integrated system of science, what we would call science, like Aristotelian science, philosophy and religion from the Judeo-Christian tradition, the pursuits of virtue, genuine happiness, eudaimonia, they knew this term, and knowledge were all completely integrated with all of the peace in this great fusion. Report an error

48:34 of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian, the Thomist integration. They're all together. But then came along the Protestant Reformation and the Sniper Revolution. That integration just unraveled. And it has been unraveling for the last 400 years. And so completely disintegrated. Happily, Buddhism was not part of that current parallel. It's outside of. Report an error

49:01 So even to call Buddhism as religion is trying to basically stereotype it within our Western framework, which is not really illegitimate, even though it has religious elements. So what I'm getting at here in a rather elaborate way is that this path, this path of knowledge, has never been disintegrated. Report an error

49:20 It's always been a cultivation of virtue and of genuine happiness and knowledge, and that means it stands in stark contrast to the pursuit of these three things over the last 400 years. And I strongly suspect that it would be tremendously helpful to introduce this more integrated approach into the modern understanding of virtue, genuine happiness and knowledge. Report an error

49:41 There's a lot to contribute, as Buddhism can be benefited in many ways by the West. So there it is. That's a brief introduction. I'll read just a little bit more, and then we'll take our break. Here's a theme that comes up a lot. In the modern Vipassanā movement, which has benefited many, many people, thousands upon thousands of people, Have had their lives benefited, enriched through this simplified version of vipassanā, bear attention, open presence and all of that, or choiceless awareness. Report an error

50:11 And a lot of it is inspired by this following teaching that Buddha gave to a wandering ascetic by the name of Bahiya. It's in the Pāli canon, often quoted. It's very meaningful. And I'll read it. Just a tiny bit of background. Bahiya was a wandering ascetic. Report an error

50:31 But he recognized that even though he had a lot of followers, people thought he was enlightened and so forth, he knew he wasn't. And he somehow heard of the Buddha and was inspired by him. And he walked great lengths, like a thousand miles, fifteen hundred miles, he pretty much walked across India. And you can imagine back then with no GPS, no newspapers, no telephone books, how do you find somebody in a subcontinent as large as India? Report an error

50:54 And you know, well his name is Gautama Buddha, you ever heard of him? And then kind of making your way through India. You ever heard of Gautama? Gautama? Gautama anyone? Calling Gautama? And then basically he found him. After I think a lot of wandering, he found him. He found him when the Buddha was out on his alms round. He finally found the manas looking. It probably took him months. And he hastened right up to him and said, Buddha, please teach me Dhamma. Report an error

51:18 And the Buddha said, I'm taking my alms. Rest a bit. Let's not hurry here. I'll get to you. But I'm on my alms round right now. He came to him a second time. Again, it was not an opportune moment. The Buddha said, not quite yet. Chill. Third time, of course, that's always the charm. And then he was really right. The Buddha said, okay, so, now the man is really poised. He's ready to receive what I have to offer. He gave him one paragraph of teaching. Report an error

51:48 At the end of the teaching, Bahiya became an Arhat. He heard one paragraph of teaching and was completely liberated. It said he was the fastest. Of all the disciples. He heard a paragraph and he was enlightened. And it's interesting how the story played out. I'll give you the paragraph in just a moment. Report an error

52:07 But he had such a sense of urgency about him. Clearly. And he's kind of pushy. And number one, he'd walked an awful long way to meet this person and he finally made it. But he was a bit pushy. And the Buddha put him off, put him off and then taught him. And right there, became an arhat, as I said. And then, about a week later, he was just out walking on a path. Report an error

52:29 And he ran into a cow with a calf. And the cow somehow found him to be a threat and gored him and killed him. He died a week later. And when the Buddha heard that, then he told all of his monks around him, this man, don't mourn for him. He'd already achieved arhatship, achieved liberation. And it was very timely because he died a week later. So what were these teachings? Report an error

52:57 This is really it right here. One paragraph. In the scene there is only the seen, in the heard there is only the heard. In the sensed, that is what we tactily perceive, there is only the sensed. In the cognized, that which we mentally perceive, there is only the cognized. Thus you should see that indeed there is no thing here, there is no reified entity here, a self here. Report an error

53:24 This bahiya is how you should train yourself. Since bahiya, there is for you in the seen, only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. In the sensed, only the sensed. In the cognized, only the cognized. And you see that there is no thing here. Again, no reified subject. You will therefore see indeed there is no thing there, reified object, absolutely other. Report an error

53:51 As you see that there is no thing there, you will see that you are therefore located neither in the world of this, the subjective side, Nor in the world of that, the objective side, nor in any place between. This alone is the end of suffering. Report an error

54:14 Bahiya got it. They're called simultaneous individuals in the Dzogchen tradition. They're called simultaneous individuals. They hear the teachings and simultaneously gain realization. Those are the extremely gifted. And so Bahiya was an extremely gifted one. So I won't elaborate on this side. It's about time to take a break. Report an error

54:35 I'll just do a little bit of commentary here, because this is more of an introduction, and then we'll be taking this step by step over the coming days. But what he said, in the scene there is only the scene. This really does have to do with bear attention, or our best approximation of that. This suspension of projection, the suspension of judgments, I like you, I don't like you, this is attractive, this is unattractive. Report an error

55:00 The suspension of that. In phenomenology they call it epoche. Just that, That moment of just being totally attentive without the reactive projections, conceptual designations, all the junk that we throw on things, conceptual projections, of just being present with what reality is dishing up without our immediately entering into dialogue of what I think about what reality is dishing up. Report an error

55:30 And so seeing appearances simply as appearances, which means they're empty. Visual appearances, they're empty of all the stuff we project on them. Sounds. The sound is just that. It's not a sound of something else which belongs to this and then immediately locked into a conceptual grid. The sound is just a sound. It's empty of all the stuff we load onto it. And that goes for tactile sensations. But it also goes for mental perceptions. Report an error

55:57 What we perceive from moment to moment arising in the mind's eye of emotions, memories, thoughts. They are what they are. They're nothing more, nothing less. But they aren't all the stuff that we project upon them. And we do it almost all the time. That's why this whole theme of bear attention has been so useful. Report an error

56:16 It is very useful. It's just not the whole package. And so Buddha emphasized this to him. This man was a prodigy. This man was extremely ripe. And he heard the teachings and recognized if you just have this crystal clear mode of apprehending reality, then what... Washes out that which is no longer an evidence, that of which you see the absence, you recognize the absence, is there being a kind of a solid, reified, real entity over here called me. Report an error

56:52 It's nowhere to be found. You actually find that it is nowhere to be found. It's not simply not finding it. You see, it's not there. And likewise, when you look at an object, a person, a thing, a place, what have you, as something really there entirely from its own side, inherent, objective, absolutely there. Report an error

57:08 That also is nowhere in evidence. Its absence becomes evident. The appearances themselves are just appearances. They are empty. And since you, as the agent, are not to be found here and you're not to be found there, you see also you're nowhere to be found in between. And therefore you just realize anattā, non-self, and you may be liberated. So if you're really exceptionally gifted, very, very ripe, with very little dust on your eyes, as the Buddha said, then this may be enough. Report an error

57:41 But it is a mistake to hold an interactive course on Buddhism and say, okay, I assume you're all just as good as Bahiya, right? You're all equally gifted? Okay, ready? One, two, three, bear attention. I think we're finished. Very good. Have a happy day. Everybody's in our heart. So this is where we can be maybe a bit miscalibrating. Report an error

57:58 These are the Buddhist teachings to this incredibly gifted individual. But to thousands upon thousands of others, he gave much more elaborate, detailed, step-by-step teachings on ethics, on samādhi, the jhānas. Different modes of Vipassanā and so forth and so on. Almost everybody else who would really like to follow the path of liberation is going to need a bit more commentary. And the extremely rare individual can get by with simple bare attention. Report an error

58:23 So that's what he taught to Bahia. Now the challenge in Vipassanā practice, and it's very explicit in these four applications of mindfulness, is something that runs through for those... You've studied South Trontic Amateur? What is your name? Monk? Yes. You've gotten older. What happened to you? Report an error

58:42 Unlike me, I'm frozen in time myself. But he's gotten older. Good to see you again. You've studied Subtrontica, haven't you? So there, Santra Conte is a really, it's kind of like Newtonian mechanics. It makes sense, it's elegant, it's rational, it's clear, it's compelling, very useful. It's just not the ultimate, but it's really useful. And the Subtrontica philosophy is just like hand in glove with these four applications of mindfulness. Report an error

59:09 If you wanted to have a philosophical context framework for these practices, it doesn't get better than Satrantica. And this can be a very brief introduction to a very elaborate but beautiful philosophy. And it's not just philosophy, it's a way of viewing reality. It's meant to be used, not just thought about, in contrast to Western philosophy to a large extent. And that is a primary task in Satrantic philosophy and in this meditation here, is to distinguish the real from the unreal. Report an error

59:39 And when that That which is real, that which is unreal. That which is unreal may exist, but not really. So this cell phone belongs to me. In fact, no it doesn't actually. It belongs to the Santa Barbara Institute, I think. Yeah, it does. It belongs to the Santa Barbara Institute. I'm an employee. Okay, but why? Report an error

1:00:00 Because we agreed. There's nothing in the cell phone that indicates ownership by anyone. It's true, but it's not real. You can look at every molecule within that cell and you'll not discover who it belongs to. You'll see fingerprints, you'll see DNA, but that doesn't mean anything. It means DNA and fingerprints. And so things like ownership, things like boundaries between, let's say, Canada and the United States, well, it exists. Report an error

1:00:23 I mean, there's a border, but it's only because a bunch of people agreed. If they change their minds, then the border is, you know, five miles north, five miles south. It's whatever we say it is and agree on it, right? And so there are many things that exist, but they're not real. They're not there. They're only by mere convention. People agree. Report an error

1:00:41 Just that. But then there are things that are real, which in the Sautrantica view it says it doesn't matter what you think about it. It doesn't matter whether you believe, whether you call it this or that. There are things that are just real. And they would give, for example, the inverse square law of gravity. It doesn't matter whether you believe it, you don't believe it, you like it, you don't like it. Report an error

1:00:58 It's one of those things that William James said, cool it with your preferences. It doesn't matter what you prefer. It's an inverse square law. Get over it. It's real. And it's objectively real. Sautrantica. And so what's real in the sattrantic view is what you can directly perceive, but including by way of the mind. So this whole notion that it's not real, it's only in your mind, that's nonsense that Buddhism never adopted. Report an error

1:01:21 What fudge, what ridiculousness. If you're suffering depression, how would you like it if a doctor comes and says, oh, you're suffering depression? Don't worry, it's only in your mind. That helps a lot, right? Wouldn't that be great? Mental diseases, oh, it's only in your mind, no problem. You're feeling lonely, oh, don't worry, it's only in your mind. Report an error

1:01:39 It's ridiculous. What's more important than what's in our minds? And what's real in the South Trantic view, just to give you a glimpse of how sweet it is, is anything that is real has causal efficacy. Report an error

1:01:54 That is, it arises independent upon causes and it in turn influences its own consequences. It is causal itself. Anything that is an effect is a cause. Anything that's a cause is an effect. It's real. It does things. It performs functions. Real things perform functions. The fact that these eyeglasses belong to me, these are my personal possession, that fact has no causal efficacy. The fact that I believe it, that does. Report an error

1:02:20 So if somebody takes it, I say, why do you take my glasses? I don't like that. So then it arouses, oh, I'm disappointed you took my glasses. But it's not the fact that causes that, it's my belief that these are mine. And so, that which we can directly perceive, that which is causally efficacious, that which performs a function in the natural world, those things are considered real. Report an error

1:02:40 And other things may exist, but they exist only conventionally, only nominally, only because we've agreed upon it. Like just that, nothing more. Those things have no causal efficacy. Just our beliefs, our agreement, that has causal efficacy. And so, then if we're interested in what is real, like Galileo was, real from God's perspective, the Buddhists, the Santrantikas, are interested in, well, then like God, what's real in the sense of having causal efficacy? Report an error

1:03:06 That you can actually directly perceive by way of any of the six senses, five sensory and one mental. And they'll say those two are co-extensive. Anything that's causally effective lends itself to direct perception. Can be, even if you haven't yet, it is observable. If it's causally efficacious, it is observable. Just develop the right technology, apply the right senses to it, and you'll see that for yourself. Report an error

1:03:30 And so the agenda here... Is to distinguish, number one, things that don't exist at all, but we may believe it and we're wrong. Things that do exist, but only because we agree. And things that are real. And decipher among those three. So if I think I'm the incarnation of Napoleon, I don't believe that. Report an error

1:03:54 But if I did, and I'm grasping onto that, why isn't everybody saluting me and calling me mon général and so forth? My belief in that, that can create a lot of disturbance, but there's no Napoleon here in any way. Zero Napoleon. But I can grasp onto that. And my belief is real, right? But I'm believing something is wrong, right? And then I can believe that this shawl belongs to me. Well, okay, that's true, but it's not real. Report an error

1:04:19 And then there's a shawl, and that is real. So we have three things. Non-existent, existent but not real, and then real. And Vipassanā is to cut through those and see what's what. So how do you do this? By closely applying mindfulness to all facets of our experienced world, this loka, to distinguish what is reality dishing up and what am I superimposing, sometimes totally falsely, right? Report an error

1:04:44 Like think I'm Napoleon, that's complete fiction. Thinking, whatever, a lot of things that are true only because of agreement. So sifting through that by closely applying mindfulness and then identifying, aha! I've identified something that has causal efficacy, and I can directly perceive it, that's real, but I see all the junk I'm superimposing on it, and that may or may not be true, but it's certainly not real. Report an error

1:05:09 And in that process, that careful distinction, what is real, what is not real, what has no existence whatsoever, that's the core theme. In Buddhism it's said that we have two types of ignorance, or delusion. One is konate. Konate means born with it. In Buddhist view, Like Darwinian, we're born with certain instincts that can be very harmful. In Buddhism, we're born with instincts, we're born with mental afflictions that we didn't get from our parents, we didn't get from DNA, didn't get from the environment. Report an error

1:05:41 Buddhist view, we're bringing them from past lives, get over it. We just brought it with us. Nobody else to blame, nobody to blame, it's just there. So those are called conate mental afflictions, including delusions. Report an error

1:05:55 But then there are acquired ones. That we do pick up from parents, from environment, from education, from the people we engage with. Like racism. I don't think racism is conate. Little babies, I think, I don't think they're racist. You have to learn that one. Or sexism, thinking that one gender is somehow intrinsically inferior to another. And many others, many other kinds of delusion. Like materialism, thinking it's not real, it's only in your mind. Report an error

1:06:19 Or subjective experience is somehow inferior to objective reality. It's crazy. But you have to learn that one. But it's said that among these innate or conate and acquired types of delusion, that we are born with delusions of superimposing on reality that which isn't there. We're born with that predilection, superposition, false superposition. So that means it's deeply ingrained, which is going to take some heavy lifting, some very deep meditation, to eradicate that from its source. Report an error

1:06:54 Because it's pretty deeply ingrained, but it's not intrinsic to our mind streams. But it's deeply habituated there. Whereas we have another type of delusion and that is denying that which does exist. So there's believing in that which doesn't exist. Report an error

1:07:11 We're born with some tendency for that already, specifically, in various ways. I won't go into it right now. But there's another type of delusion of denying that which does exist. It actually presents itself to us and we say, no, I don't accept it. For example, even to this day, Well, you know, women really can't do mathematics. They're just too emotional. They're just not good at abstract thinking. And then you encounter a woman who's simply brilliant mathematically. Report an error

1:07:39 Oh, no, she's a fluke. She might probably learn it from her dad or her husband. That's not compelling evidence. There's going to be some reason for that, but that's not real. And so you just screen out anything. You just don't see it. You deny it. No, no, she doesn't deserve an education. She wouldn't do well, not at a place like MIT. I mean, really, there's a bunch of men there. Report an error

1:07:58 Chopped into mincemeat there. Don't let her into MIT. She'll never survive. And there she is. She's more brilliant than most of the people in MIT. So there it is. That's acquired delusion. And when you see contrary evidence, you just blot it out. You say, no, that can't be. No, no, no. So between those two, the negation of what does exist, that's acquired. Report an error

1:08:24 But the projection of something that isn't there that we believe, that comes with the territory and that's a central function of this meditation. Is to clean away the overgrowth, the projections, the reification, the embellishments, the elaborations, and see what is real. Report an error

1:08:43 And so, to cite the last point, and it's 3.40, we're pretty much on time, but this statement from scientific materialism, and it's very, very widespread, it's not just a weirdo here and there, that claims only material phenomena and their emergent properties have causal efficacy, if it's only in your mind, it's not real. Report an error

1:09:02 I was at a mindfulness conference in Hamburg just a couple of years ago. There was a very fine neuroscientist, very bright. She did some excellent research on meditation and the effects on the brain. And she introduced herself. She said, I'm a neuroscientist, therefore I believe the mind is the brain. All in one sentence. That's interesting. Report an error

1:09:21 But it's kind of like I belong to the guild and our guild believes that the mind is the brain. So, okay. She didn't give any reasons why the mind should be the brain. She just said, you know, we believe this is the way it is. And I questioned her. We had a nice friendly debate afterwards. And to cut it short, I won't make it a long story. It's kind of interesting, at least to me. Report an error

1:09:40 But I pointed out, you know, that the mental processes, when we actually observe them, have no physical qualities at all. And the brain has no psychological qualities at all. I mean, it's chemicals and electricity. Let's not go woozy-woozy into la-la land here. It's not a mystical substance. It's chemicals and electricity in very complex configurations. Report an error

1:10:01 That's what it is. And to say it's complex doesn't mean it's mystical. It's just complex. And so when you see the brain, you don't see the mind. You see the mind, you don't see the brain. So why are you saying that they're the same? On what evidence? Because after all, what we know is the brain function influences subjective experience. Get drunk, you're dizzy, silly and so forth. Report an error

1:10:21 But we also know, it's been known for decades now, this weird little phenomenon called the placebo effect of believing, having a doctor, From a prestigious hospital, all kinds of plaques on the wall showing all his or her degrees. And the doctor comes and said, this medicine is going to do it for you. Report an error

1:10:41 This will dispel the symptoms of your problem. You can count on it. Probably should be gone in about a week. And the doctor actually knows that they have no treatment whatsoever for your illness. But she'd like to give you a chance. And she says, okay, take this. See how it goes. But I think this is going to be very good for you. Take this. It will work. And you believe her. Report an error

1:11:00 You have trust in her. You expect that the treatment will work. You hope it will work. You believe it will work. And lo and behold, in not all, but many cases, it works. In very specific ways. It's incredibly mysterious and there's no scientific explanation for this. It comes under the banner of a complete misnomer. Report an error

1:11:21 This is not a placebo effect. It's a subjective mental effect. And the efficacy of this is your faith, your belief, your expectation and your desire. And it doesn't even have to be a pill. It can be, there's an Italian scientist, probably the best in the world who studied this, he said it doesn't have to be a pill, it can be something totally intangible like a gesture or a word. Report an error

1:11:44 Oh, I'm sure this is going to solve itself within one week, don't worry. You don't have to do anything. And the person says, oh, cool, great, believes it. And lo and behold, in many cases, vanishes. So we know, it's beyond any shadow of a doubt, it's called neuroplasticity. There's one way of looking at it. That our mental activities, our imaginations, our thoughts, desires, emotions, they have tangible, practical, physical influences on the brain. Report an error

1:12:11 That cannot be debated at this point. The evidence is overwhelming. And so we know that the brain influences subjective experience. We know subjective experience, like the so-called placebo effect. Has such a massive influence that the pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to try to sift that out so they can identify what is the efficacy of their drugs. Report an error

1:12:30 Because they can't sell the placebo effect. They can sell the drugs and they want to sell their drugs. And so we know subjective experience influences the brain. The brain influences subjective experience. That we know. What's the relationship between the two? Not known. So I said, why don't you just look at the facts? Report an error

1:12:50 that The brain has no psychological attributes and the mind has no physical attributes and they do causally interact. Why not just say that rather than one is the other with no compelling evidence? And her answer was very interesting. She said, well, I have to believe that the mind is the brain because I cannot imagine how one could influence the other if they're not both physical. Report an error

1:13:15 I can't imagine it. And therefore it can't be true. And therefore it's not true. And therefore even though we have no compelling evidence, she didn't quite say this but she should have, even though we have no compelling evidence or rational argument, because I can't imagine how a non-physical could influence the physical, therefore I will say it doesn't exist and you are your brain. Report an error

1:13:37 So that I would say is pseudoscience. When it has no supporting evidence, no rational argument, it's simply a product of the scientist's failure to be able to imagine that which seems to be quite true. And it's also evidence that neuroscientists in the 21st century haven't studied quantum mechanics. Does anybody study quantum mechanics? I mean elementary quantum mechanics. Report an error

1:13:59 The first thing you learn is you cannot imagine what's going on in the quantum world. You cannot imagine quantum causality. You can't imagine the atom as it actually is. Now that we know about quantum mechanics, that notion that we all learned when maybe 13 or 14, you remember the grapefruit and the football stadium and how it's mostly empty and with these electrons going around in their little tracks and jumping from one track to another. Report an error

1:14:23 Anybody ever hear about that one? It was antiquated by 1913. No scientist, no worthy scientist who knows quantum mechanics had believed in that model that that's what's really going on for 100 years. But you can imagine it. Grapefruit, football stadium. Little white transparent things buzzing around and hopping tracks and absorbing photons and emitting photons. It's a nice model. It's the last model that any reputable quantum physicist ever presented to try to enable us to visualize what an atom is like. Report an error

1:14:53 It was Niels Bohr, as I recall. It was a good try. It's completely false. There is no such thing in nature. It doesn't exist anywhere at all. And from that point on, the whole community in quantum mechanics gave up trying. They said, we can't imagine it. It's not imaginable by the human intellect what an atom actually looks like with these elementary particles. They don't even simultaneously have precise location and momentum. Report an error

1:15:20 That's universally agreed. That's not speculative. It's universally agreed. It's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Insofar as it has any of these measured electrons, insofar as they have precise location, they have imprecise momentum. Insofar as they have precise momentum, they have imprecise. And it's not that you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Well, who can imagine that? Let alone quantum entanglement, which is very mysterious. Report an error

1:15:44 Nobody really understands it, how it occurs. Nobody can visualize it. Anybody see the glass? There we are. And so in quantum mechanics, people have gotten over it a hundred years ago. That causality occurs in the physical world that you simply cannot imagine at all, but get over it because the causality still happens. Report an error

1:16:01 But the problem in neuroscience is that they're not studying 20th century physics. They're still back there in the horse and buggy era of the late 19th century where everything bumped into everything. Waves and particles bumping into each other and they got causality. So there's something that is really pseudoscience because the neuroscientists are just out of touch with contemporary physics and think that something doesn't exist because they can't imagine it. Report an error

1:16:22 That's acquired delusion. Acquired delusion that somehow only material phenomena are causally efficacious. It's just Report an error

1:16:35 obviously untrue. Electromagnetic fields, not a mystical phenomenon. Electromagnetic fields, we all know what they are, light, travel through empty space. And that means absolutely empty space. The notion of the ether, there was some physical medium that was actually rippled when these waves, these electromagnetic fields would travel through space in the form of waves. Report an error

1:16:56 The notion that actually something rippled, the ether, disproven in 1879, I think it was. Hardly anybody's believed in it ever since. It doesn't exist. And yet, electromagnetic fields exhibit wave properties, the interference, all of the classic wave attributes, they exhibit them. But then you ask, well, but what's rippling? Report an error

1:17:17 They're traveling through absolutely empty space. So what's the medium that's rippling? You know, waves. And then the amplitude and the cancellation of waves and refraction of waves and all that kind of stuff. What's rippling? Somebody has to ripple their waves. The answer is nothing's rippling. But that's not possible. I can't imagine it. You're right. Get over it. Report an error

1:17:36 You can't imagine it. Tough luck. It's still true. And by the way, a wave has no material, an electromagnetic field has no matter in it. No electrons, protons, no matter. No elementary particles. If you want to speak particles, it's photons, but they are not matter, they're energy. So an electromagnetic field is not material. It's physical, occupy space, travels, and so forth and so on, has no matter in it. Report an error

1:18:04 So it's physical but not material, and it certainly does have causal efficacy. So we really need to catch up in the mind sciences, really kind of get real. A lot happened in the 20th century that you didn't study, and the notion that only material phenomena are causal efficacious is just rank superstition, like believing in the tooth fairy, but it's very, very common. Report an error

1:18:30 And so, final point, and then we'll take our break, is that the understanding of causality, It's absolutely central to all of Buddhadharma. Completely central. It's right there in the Four Noble Truths. Here's an effect. It's suffering. Here's the cause. It's cause of suffering, source of suffering. Here's an effect. It's the realization of nirvāṇa, cessation of suffering. Here's the cause. Ethics, samādhi and wisdom. It's all about causality. Report an error

1:18:54 The twelve links to dependent origination, karma, actions and their consequences. It's a naturalistic understanding of reality at which causality and dependent origination is utterly core. It's not transcendent, it's not mystical, it's not divine, it's causality. But there's a big difference from modern scientific understanding of causality outside of quantum mechanics. Report an error

1:19:19 And that is the Buddhist understanding of causality is entirely phenomenological. It's just the phenomena themselves. There's no need to invoke an underlying mechanism. And that was absolutely imperative in Newtonian mechanics. And even in classical electromagnetism, before the discovery of the absence of the ether. And so the Buddhist understanding of causality is, independence upon this, this arose. Report an error

1:19:44 With this being absent, then that no longer arose. But that's it. It's just phenomenological account of this, independence upon this, that arose. It is not predetermination. That because this happened, this inevitably had to happen. It simply says that this happened, independence upon something that occurred prior to that point. Report an error

1:20:04 So it's causality, but it's not predetermination at all and never has been. And so in Buddhist understanding causality, we are accepting kind of the obvious. And that is your emotions, which have no physical attributes whatsoever, your thoughts, your hopes, your desires, your ideals, your motivations, your ideals, like to build a skyscraper. Report an error

1:20:26 You have an idea first and then lo and behold there's a skyscraper. These all have causal efficacy. as much as a As a baseball or a galaxy, mental phenomena have causal efficacy. Physical phenomena have causal efficacy. And the other phenomena, it's not simply Cartesian dualism. In the William James view, it's kind of similar to him, it's a pluralistic universe. Report an error

1:20:55 It's not just mind and matter, physical and mental. There's a wide variety of other phenomena that have causal efficacy. Report an error

1:21:03 But we understand the causal efficacy in terms of simply independence upon this, this arose, independence upon this, this arose, without needing to have something bump into each other, which is very crude, almost Neanderthal. But that notion again saturates most of the mind sciences and most of the natural sciences by people who haven't studied quantum mechanics. So it's very wide open, it's very pluralistic, open to a wide variety of causal influences, and that's causality. Report an error

1:21:32 And that's what we're really attending to closely, that which has causal efficacy in our lived world. That's our introduction. So let's come back, it's now, let's see, let's come back at seven minutes past the hour. I'll start at seven minutes past, okay? Enjoy your break, and I'll see you then. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/FourApplicationsOfMindfulnessRetreat2013. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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